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Wednesday, November 05, 2008
International Rules saved in Australia
Ireland 4-9-8 (57 points, aggregate 102), Australia 38-11 (53 points, aggregate 97). That was the score last Friday in an embryonic game known as International Rules in which a team of Gaelic footballers successfully represented Ireland at international level. Ireland captain Sean Kavanagh proudly hoisted the International Rules trophy, appropriately named after his late Tyrone team-mate Cormac McAnallen.
Winning was important but not as important as the fact that both games in the series were played in a true competitive spirit. The matches were hard but within the rules. Both sets of players approached the games in the right spirit. Indeed both referees deserve great credit for the excellent manner in which they did their jobs.
Thus the visionary concept that is International Rules football may well be here to stay. Next year Australia will visit Ireland for another two-game series that will form part of the GAA’s 125th anniversary celebrations. If that resembles this year’s levels of competitive goodwill, then there is no doubt we are watching the evolution of a new concept in international sport.
There are and will be many detractors who see it as a hybrid version of Gaelic football that does nothing to promote or develop the native game and encourages GAA players to try their hand at the professional game in Australia.
They forget that Australian Rules has its origins in Gaelic, brought to the other side of the world by Irish deportees. What we’re watching now is a reunion games that evolved in very different ways on opposite sides of the world.
Ireland captain Sean Cavanagh has a very different view to the detractors. “Whenever this game is played the way it was played tonight, to me it’s right up there with the best games on the planet,” he said. A strong endorsement indeed from Tyrone’s Player of the Year and one that is generally echoed by many Gaelic stars.
Team manager Sean Boylan, who showed great faith in the series despite having managed Ireland during the Croke Park debacle in 2006, was equally impressed. “The game was the big winner. It creates the opportunity for players coming after these lads to play for their country. That’s the most important thing of all,” he stressed.
In those remarks Boylan has pinpointed a key element of this series. Gaelic football is not an international game. As a result its players are deprived an opportunity to represent their country. That is a great shame. International Rules gives them that opportunity, and watching the pride Boylan’s team played with, it’s clear that they value greatly the chance to wear an Ireland shirt. There is much we can learn from both the Australians and International Rules. One of Gaelic football’s greatest skills, the high catch, is no longer recognised or protected.
High fielding usually results in a free against the fielder as he is surrounded by opponents who force him to overcarry. Thus our best fielders are penalised when they execute the game’s finest skill. For this reason the “mark” should be introduced without delay. Such a motion to GAA Congress in 2005, seeking the introduction of the mark for ball fielded from the kickout, was heavily defeated. It was seen as a dilution of our native game by the introduction of a foreign rule.
Of course the same argument was used when red and yellow cards were first proposed. The tackle must also be looked at. There is little doubt it could be introduced to good effect in Gaelic. At the moment the game has no tackle apart from the shoulder charge.
So players play the possession game with the hand pass virtually obliterating use of the kick. If the tackle was brought in, things would change greatly. Such change will evolve in time. In the meantime well done to Ireland’s International Rules team both on their victory and the pride they showed in representing their country.
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